Information provided via networks is “consumed” in vast quantities every day. Such information may be provided in the form of television programming, email, short messages, blogs, and web pages.
The popularity of social media sites has been recognized by purveyors of products and services. By way of illustration, dozens of major cable and broadcast TV shows have started to create “fan pages” on Facebook and Twitter (in addition to their own show-centric websites/blogs). The fan pages provide viewers the opportunity to interact with (to “follow”) cast members, writers and other fans, both within and beyond a show's broadcast window. Similarly, producers of branded products created Twitter and Facebook fan pages for their customers as a means to have a two-way dialog with their customer base. The online engagement of fans and customers may take the form of branded online and downloadable interactive applications, games and social communities that can be accessed regularly through multiple screens and devices.
The lines between these various media are also blurring. For example, some multi-channel video programming distributors (MVPDs) provide subscribers access to existing web-based social media platforms (such as Facebook and Twitter) while engaging in a TV viewing experience. The existing access to social media through video access devices replicates many of the text-heavy interactions that are better suited to a laptop or desktop PC (with its QWERTY keyboard, mouse & pointer/cursor) or smartphones (that also have a QWERTY keyboard & mouse, pointer/cursor equivalent). The navigation and data-entry device for a typical digital STB is a remote control that is reliant on the controls afforded by the up/down/right/left arrow keys and the ABCD colored buttons. This makes text entry a sub-optimal experience at best. Additionally, the access to these social networks is not typically contextually relevant to the viewer programming experience.